‘Accidental Ingénue’ Amanda Knox Faces Retrial For Sensational Murder

PRISONER OF DOUBT

‘Accidental Ingénue’ Amanda Knox Faces Retrial For Sensational Murder

ITALY’S COURTS AREN’T THREW WITH AMANDA “FOXY” KNOX: the country’s high court has overturned her acquittal and ordered a new trial for her alleged murder of her 21-year-old British roommate.

Knox was one of three suspects charged with the death of her Meredith Kercher, found stabbed to death underneath a duvet in 2007 in Perugia, Italy. Prosecutors claimed that she was killed during deviant sexual play between Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and a third name named Rudy Guede.

The perverse allegations, combined with Knox’s beauty, turned the murder trial into a sensation in Italy, and Knox, then 20, was convicted with Sollecito in December 2009. (Guede was tried separately and found guilty and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.) But an Italian court threw out convictions against both Knox and Sollecito 18 month ago, and Knox returned to her home in Seattle after spending four years in prison.
Earlier today, the Court of Cassation announced it Knox’s acquittal was overturned. The announcement “was greeted by a shocked silence in the courtroom here,” The New York Timesreports. The exact grounds on which the new trial will be tried are expected to be released within 90 days. ” “It could be the DNA, witnesses or a footprint,” Knox’s attorney Dalla Vedova told the Times.

Knox will not return to Italy for the trial, and it is unknown if the U.S. would extradite her back to Europe if she were found guilty a second time.

Prosecutors in the original murder trial, taken aback by Knox’s demeanor after her arrest, have since been roundly denounced for being overtly sexist and unscientific. A police officer claimed that Knox “smelled of sex.” Lead investigator Edgardo Giobbi was quoted saying, “We were able to establish guilt by closely observing the suspect’s psychological and behavioural reaction during the interrogation. We don’t need to rely on other kinds of investigation.”

In a lengthy story on the case, a Rolling Stones writer characterized the initial police at the murder scene as “band of child sleuths out of Scooby-Doo,” and criticizes Italy’s judicial system as “carnivalesque.” The writer tagged Knox the “accidental ingénue.’

Knox, now 25, released a statement calling the reversal “painful” considering that “the prosecution’s theory of my involvement in Meredith’s murder has been repeatedly revealed to be completely unfounded and unfair.”

Knox’s book about her ordeal, Waiting to Be Heard, is due out April 30, the same day ABC will broadcast her first interview since her release.